The growth of the poultry industry in recent years has led to the development of numerous improvements in the handling and transporting of large numbers of live poultry. Such improvements include notably the development of injection molded plastic shipping crates or coops. The molded crates have been found to be less expensive, more durable, stronger, and more amenable to stacking than other shipping crates of more conventional materials and design. Poultry crates are notoriously abused by the vagarious inflictions of the road and the elements when carried on flat-bed trucks and by human handlers at the loading and unloading sites. It is important that they remain stacked when stacked and latched when latched, but that they be easily unstacked and dumped as required. The latches in particular should be designed to minimize the damage of rough treatment.
As an example of a prior art molded plastic poultry container, the reader may be interested in Bromley's U.S. Pat. No. 3,330,434. This design includes a nesting configuration and a latch and door opening which must be operated manually and independently.
Shreckhise's U.S. Pat. No. 3,993,026 describes a "self-dumping" door in addition to a loading door and employing a spring-loaded latching means. Having a number of moving parts, the latch is susceptible to various types of failures. Box, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,966,084, recognizes the problem inherent in prior art latches, and provides a sliding configuration which, however, can be opened accidentally.